This Year's Least-Deserving Tourney Teams

Congratulations to 60 college basketball teams!

Pissed your team didn’t make it into the tournament? Take it up with the NCAA. Oh, and these four suckhole teams that pulled a Tonya Harding on snubs like Arizona State and Ohio State, and somehow snuck in.

Team: Arizona
Record: 19-14 (8-10 PAC-10)
Let's get it straight: The Wildcats finished seventh in the PAC-10 with a .400 record. They lost eight of their last 12 games. Washington State was their only quality win since UNLV in mid-December. According to the Selection Committee, the way into the Big Dance is to sink to the bottom half of your conference, lose big games to good teams, and go down in flames when it matters most. Maybe Kansas does have a chance!

Team: St Joe’s
Record: 21-12 (9-7 Atlantic 10)
St. Joe’s is indeed a feel-good story. The Hawks came through with huge wins against Villanova and Xavier (twice), two solid tournament teams. But does the fourth place team in the Atlantic 10 really deserve a bid, when they didn’t beat anyone else worth mentioning, and furthermore crashed and burned in the final third of the season (6-7 in their last 13)? Whooping up on perennial scrubs Duquesne and St. Louis shouldn't get you into the tournament. Oh wait, St. Joe’s lost to them, too.


Team: St. Mary’s
Record: 25-6 (12-2 WCC)
The Gaels are in the tournament because they beat Gonzaga once. Period. The last team they beat was back in November when there was still an illusion that Oregon was good. They had the guts to go out and play Texas, but promptly lost by 19. A strength of schedule of 138 is not enough to put a team in the tournament unless it has some signature wins to go with it—and Gonzaga isn't the John Hancock it once was. To top off the season, St. Mary's managed to lose three of its final five games.


Team: South Alabama
Record: 26-6 (16-2 Sun Belt)
The Jags have posted an excellent record. The problem? Their schedule reads like a roadmap of desegregation. How many Southerns, Middles, Internationals, Atlantics and Norths can one team play in a year? And Presbyterian?! Isn’t there a rule against beating a religion? South Alabama beat Mississippi State—in December. But they lost to Vanderbilt the one other time they tried to play a real school, and didn’t even make it to the Sun Belt Tournament final. Bottom line: They suck, there we said it.